The veteran Florida-based console developer n-Space has closed its doors after 21 years in operation, according to a Twitter statement from staffer Ben Leary.
“There has been rounds of layoffs over the past few months…” Leary wrote. “I’d like to take this moment to publicly thank n-Space president Dan O’Leary for his efforts and transparency throughout the process.”
He says that “in-house staff worked long and hard to keep this from happening.”
The studio had been well-known as a developer of console FPS games — one of its highest profile titles was Gamecube shooter Geist, and it developed a number of Call of Duty games for the Nintendo DS. As middle-tier console games shrank as a market segment, n-Space suffered.
As far back as 2012, CEO Dan O’Leary spoke about his studio’s troubles adapting to a changing landscape. The company suffered its first significant round of layoffs in 2010.
“The economy has robbed customers of disposable income, reducing the number of titles that purchased per year. Huge-budget titles have to sell massive numbers to return a profit and the App Store has disrupted our industry in the same way iTunes changed consumer expectations for music,” O’Leary wrote at the time.
“In the PlayStation era and, to a lesser degree, the PS2/Xbox era, there was a business opportunity for lower cost games that sold enough to make the publisher an attractive return on their investment. As development costs continued to increase in the PS3/360 era, that opportunity was greatly diminished,” O’Leary told me in 2013.
Sadly, it seems the developer was unable to find a new niche. The company’s most recent project was the Dungeons & Dragons licensed RPG Sword Coast Legends.
Gamasutra has reached out to n-Space for confirmation of the news and comment, and will update this story if any is forthcoming.